


Watching

by jdjunkie



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-16
Updated: 2010-08-16
Packaged: 2017-10-11 03:08:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/107673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdjunkie/pseuds/jdjunkie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set on Abydos, after the movie and before the series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watching

She finds him alone, sitting out by the big dune, with a pencil in one hand and his journal in the other.

He’s absorbed in his thoughts and she knows he doesn’t see her, so she watches him from a short distance away. She smiles at the way he sucks the end of the pencil as he contemplates his work and she wonders what he’s writing. She’s learning the words, a few at a time. The letters come easily to her – they’re just symbols like any others – but the words are harder. She likes the shapes and the way the letters flow, and sometimes, when he writes, she places her hand over his and they trace the outlines together, Daniel telling her what they are and what they mean.

She likes the straight lines that lend strength to “Abydos” and the way the letters of “Daniel” run together, as though they are meant to be. She likes that his name means “God is my judge,” although she believes there are many gods. But everyone will be judged in the end, in death, and by one God or many, it really doesn’t matter.

Daniel writes in the book, carefully, deliberately, with the same kind of focus he brings to everything, from grinding flour to weaving cloth. Sometimes, a childlike mannerism will escape him, like now, when the end of his tongue peeks from between his lips as an aid to concentration. She smiles. It is very much her Daniel. His hair falls over his face, across his now-broken glasses but he’s too involved in his writing to notice or care.

So, she moves on quiet, bare feet to sit beside him and gently pushes the nearly blond strands behind his ear.

“I didn’t hear you,” he says, turning towards her and offering a small smile, the one that delights her because it is so uniquely him.

“That is because I did not want you to,” she replies, pulling the warm robe more closely round her shoulders.

It is evening, and night falls quickly here, and with it comes the biting cold.

“You’ve been watching me?” he asks, surprised, but there is delight in there, too.

“Only for a short while. I have much to do. I came to see where you were. You left the birthing day celebrations so soon.” She chides him, gently, but is also asking the question.

“Yes. Well. It’s a woman thing, I think. Besides, I had some notes to write up.” And he turns slightly away from her to gaze across the emptiness of the desert. And she senses the distance in him and wonders what he sees. She thinks maybe it’s not the sand and the setting sun.

“But you told me you had delivered a woman’s child once. On a … what was the word you used?”

“Dig”

“Dig. Did it not fill you with great joy?”

He shifts slightly. “Um, not really. It was kind of noisy and frantic and  … messy.” He tilts his head slightly, remembering, and she wants to draw him back, so she links her arm through his and lays her head on his shoulder. She loves to hear of his other life, the life before he came to Abydos. In some small way, it makes her feel a part of it, too.

“What are you thinking?” she asks. She asks this of him a lot and she’s never sure if Daniel tells her the truth in reply.

“That I’m getting cold and that you’re wonderfully warm against my side and if we sit here much longer I’m going to want to make love to you right here. And that’s not a good idea because the sand, you know, gets everywhere.”

She laughs, a deep, throaty sound, and that wins her a smile that reaches right to his eyes and into her soul.

Her beautiful Daniel.

She treasures the moment because it’s rare that she has all of him. For the moment, there is no pyramid, no cartouche, no chappa'ai.

The cold presses in on them as the light starts to fail quickly and she settles herself closer into his body. Her breast pushes against his arm and arousal sparks deep within her, just as it always does when they are close and quiet. She closes her eyes and breathes deeply, drinking in the scent of him; the sweat makes her heart race. Her longing for his touch is intense.

Their lovemaking is always a joy. They laugh often. Sometimes he cries when he comes inside her and she can’t ask him why. Sometimes, their loving is fierce and hot, like the Abydos sun, and sometimes it is slow and thoughtful and he looks at her as though he finds mysteries within her that he cannot touch or understand.

He places the journal and pencil on the sand and she watches him watch the sky change color, from the clearest blue through indigo to the deepest violet.

“You are thinking of home,” she says, certain now.

“This is my home,” he says.

She swallows hard because she believes he thinks that is the truth.

“It is not,” she says, keeping the sadness from him. The sand beneath her feet and between her toes suddenly feels dense with cold. “But it is where you are now and I am glad for that.”

He will leave. One day. Probably soon. And she’s as sure of that as she is that the sun will rise in the morning.

He puts an arm around her shoulder and hugs her tightly, shivering in the chill air, offering her comfort. But he doesn’t deny it.

They sit together and watch the first stars wink into the velvet darkness as the three moons take their place in the night sky, and she tries not to dream of the future.


End file.
